Social media is a powerful platform that helps to drive website traffic. A presence on social media is something that people rely on turning to before going to your website. In this blog post we look at the benefits of an active social media presence to your Tour Operator company.
Once you’ve got a branded page for your Tour Operator company on Facebook, it’s important to go above and beyond simply posting content about your service to the page. Post content regularly, but make it a mix of both promotional and informational content.
Be sure to engage with your audience on Facebook too – respond to as many posts as you have the time for, whether they’re positive or negative or even if your previous guests have shared images or videos of their trip with you – this is one of the benefits of social media for a business owner, your customers generate promotional content for you without even being asked!
You might also consider taking advantage of the target ad opportunities that Facebook offers, and invest in these promotions as part of your marketing plan. These will help you to reach a defined market segment, based on age, location, interest and more.
Post updates and place ads that will attract this audience, who may be on a vacation and interested in immediately booking one of your tours or activities. Your audience may also be in the planning stages of their trip and not necessarily around the corner already, so be sure to use appropriate ad creative to convince the customer at whatever stage in the buying cycle they’re at.
Listen to your audience, and most importantly, respond. This allows you to deal with any issues in real time, and can increase your overall brand recognition, and your public perception as a company that can relate to and interact with its customers in real time. When you manage a situation well, your followers will know it. A Twitter feed with nothing but promotional posts isn’s a sign of a well maintained Twitter account – get your audience engaged and communicate with them.
Send tweets out to your followers that they want to see. If you have put together a promotion or discount for a popular tour, tweet about it.
Why not create a discount that is exclusive to Twitter users. They’ll be more inclined to book with you (and quickly) in order to take advantage of a time-sensitive, exclusive opportunity.
Of course, these tips only graze the surface of marketing on Twitter. Your reach is vast, and there are so many opportunities available to access new customers and increase your online bookings if you keep abreast of the latest development in marketing on Twitter.
Similar to Facebook, tour operators and activity providers can benefit from investing in advertisement opportunities on Instagram.
New clickable ads on Instagram allow tour and activity operators to showcase several different photographs before enticing the potential customer with a call to action. It allows the traveler to immerse themselves in the experience prior to purchasing a tour or excursion.
Aside from paid marketing options for Instagram, you can create and maintain a sizeable following if you post images that will inspire; those will be popular among your target audience, as in the discovery phase of planning a trip abroad, all people need is a little bit of visual stimuli to be inspired and picture themselves on the trip with your Tour Operator company.
A whimsical photo taken at just the right angle may get someone more interested in what they will experience while enjoying a tour or activity with you.
Of course, these tips only graze the surface of marketing on social media. However, as a tour operators, you generate experiences daily that are worthy of sharing on social media. You should have no trouble finding content to put out there that will generate attention, so go on get out there and start wowing the world with some social proof of your awesome Tour Packages!
